


over hills

by nymja



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, History Ruiner
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:46:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for a prompt on tumblr: crixus and naevia survive and have those children.</p><p>--</p><p><i>A child,</i> he would say, hand sprawled over her naked stomach, fingers traveling over naked hips, <i>Once we have found your peace.</i> His brown, warm eyes would look into her own, seeking an answer to the question he was too afraid to ask. And she would know in those moments of vulnerability that he trusted only her with what he secretly wanted from the world.</p><p><i>A child</i>, she would promise against his lips, <i>born in freedom.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	over hills

**Author's Note:**

> So *achem* obviously this isn’t going to be historically accurate, and I took some liberties with the plotline of the show. I tried my best to stick to the spirit of it, however! Hope you enjoy :D

**o.**

She watches as the mother traces a finger down the babe’s small nose. As she leans over to let her forehead rest against him while he feeds from her breast. Even from where Naevia sits, she can hear the new mother humming: low in her throat, soft. A lullaby from her own people perhaps. The words of the song are lost, but Naevia can understand its meaning well enough.

Peace. Love. Protection.

She sits by herself, listening, until Crixus returns from his meeting with Spartacus, her eyes wet and her arms folded tightly across her stomach.

\--

The night before they part ways with Spartacus for the last time, Crixus asks Naevia about her people against the column of her neck. No doubt thoughts of children, of the future, still haunting him as much as they haunt her.

“There are only slaves,” she whispers, “You are the first I could call mine.”

He’s silent where he lays behind her, but she feels his lips press against the hum of her throat, and she understands its meaning well enough.

Naevia lets herself sink into the warm, hard weight of his body, her eyes closed and one of his arms folded tightly across her stomach.

\--

In the sand and the pitch, she loses him. It has never happened before, never in the unending battles have they ever been from each other’s side. But there are too many fucking Romans under Crassus’ banner, too much smoke giving a dark stain to the air. So somewhere in the chaos and the desire to quench her thirst for Roman blood, Crixus is lost under the currents of battle.

Naevia runs a sword through the ribs of a _peditatus,_ and over his sagging body she searches, eyes travelling from face to face in near desperation. They are being overrun, two Romans charging their forces for every one that falls, and she will _not_ be parted from this life without knowing his fate.

“Crixus!” She calls, though it is lost to the thunder of steel, the cries of pain, the barks of command. She plants her sandaled foot on the Roman’s chest and shoves him off her blade, running across the field once her sword is free from the corpse’s weight.

“ _Crixus_!”

Her eyes wide, and panic curling tightly in her stomach, Naevia doesn’t expect the hilt of Gaius Julius fucking Caesar’s sword until it comes crashing against the base of her skull.

\--

She does not know where she is when she awakens, and the familiar coldness of fear emerges in quick, choking flashes of her mind: hands on her shoulders, stale breath on her neck, a heavy weight over her-

Naevia goes to cry out, but it is muffled by a soiled cloth tied around her head. And old fears slide into new ones when she realizes that she is not in the mines, or in the company of a _dominus,_ but bound and gagged on the floor of a tent belonging to a Roman general.

She looks up, and knows the man in front of her is Crassus by the armor gleaming on his chest, devoid of any blood or ash. And from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, she is frozen—breath coming in labored inhales through her nose.

If Crassus stands before her…

The Roman is flanked by the traitor and a whelp boychild who bears a passing similarity. But she doesn’t see either of them. She only sees the general standing in her god’s place.

“Gaius tells me you are Crixus’s woman and well known to Spartacus.”

Hot tears run down her face, and collect in the soiled cloth. Her wordless sob is a pathetic thing restrained by gag, but it holds in every part of her body.

The Roman steps in front of her, “Your man is dead,” he says simply, “Return what’s left of him with my word.”

He throws a necklace on the ground. Two silver crow skulls glow in the torchlight.

Naevia screams.

\--

Days later, a lone rider is spotted by Nasir approaching the rebel’s camp. The figure wears a legion’s cloak and falls from their horse to collapse on the ground.  


**i.**

It has been two days since she has had water, but Naevia keeps her arms folded in front of her and watches Spartacus pour wine without thirst. The metal of the necklace bites into the palms of her hands as she clutches it as tight as she can.

“Drink,” he requests, not for the first time.

Her throat is dry when she manages to speak for the first time since she awoke in the safety of Spartacus’s tent.

“Do not waste such on the dead.”

Her hands shake though the rest of her body is still.

Seven days ago they had lain together and he had promised her a home. Now she knows that home is only to be found on the other bank of the river where he is waiting for her.

She does not desire drink. Or food. Or Spartacus’s sympathetic gaze and undeserved kindness. What she only desires is to be a wraith, vengeful and merciless in balancing the scales that are owed to them.

It is all she wants. Not wine. Not life beyond what she needs to honor the one who allowed light back into a shadow. Not strength aside from what it takes to lift a sword.

She does not know who has stolen Crixus’s life. So a thousand Roman lives are what is owed to her.

And Naevia will collect.

\--

After she speaks to Crassus’s woman (Kore, she thinks, because slaves deserve names and she feels that, were her life kinder, Kore is someone who could have been like a sister. She sees resolve behind the pain of love lost, and Naevia does not doubt that Kore will not squander her next opportunity) she finds herself by the fire.

Not even a month ago, she had sat beside it and watched a mother singing to her child. Crixus had held her in his arms. She had been full.

Now, she sits alone and stares at the flames curling around a log. Remembering when she was compared to the sun by a god.

Naevia doesn’t know how long she sits there, but she finds herself welcoming company when it arrives.

“May I sit with you?” Nasir is quiet, eyes ringed with red and he stands with a slight hunch, as though something heavy rests on his shoulders.

She does not know how they arrived here, the two of them. How they came to exist in a world without heart and at a place where he needs to question his welcoming. She does not know how things-loved ones- have continued to slip through her control as they do.

Naevia swallows, and nods.

Nasir surprises her again, by sitting next to her. He brings his knees up, resting his elbows upon them as he watches the same fire. She wonders what memories he sees in it, if Agron also held him and spoke of a future, of a family, before he too was snatched away by fucking Romans.

He breathes, and it is labored. She wants to reach out, to hold his hand in simple comfort like they once did in the shelter of Vesuvius. But she does not know the manner of his grief beyond the fact that it mirrors her own.

“I do not know how to lift this weight,” he finally says, turning to look at her. He doesn’t look for an answer, or condolences. That is Nasir’s way, the quiet strength she has envied.

Naevia’s eyes flood with tears, though she doesn’t know why she weeps now, only that she needs to. Her breath is ragged, “I would only seek vengeance.”

Nasir’s gaze flickers back to the fire, “…and honor?”

“Lost to me.”

His jaw clenches, but he nods in a resigned manner. “I have many regrets, but the worst is that I did not follow my own heart,” Nasir’s eyes water in the firelight, “Instead I heeded the desires of Agron. I did not follow you to battle.”

Her hand rests on his arm, the gesture both familiar and estranged, a motion covered in rust. But he turns to her, and his hand rests over her own, “No one faults you for it. Your path was not our own, Nasir.”

“My path is the one that is next to Agron’s. In this life, and any after,” he closes his eyes, and she does not fight it when he wraps an arm around her waist, “I have nothing left but the hope that I might yet honor him before we are reunited.”

She realizes that she is still crying, that sobs move like silent tremors down the expanse of her back. He rests his head on top of her own just as she rests her cheek on his shoulder. The rust of their gestures falls away in the face of their new, grieving bond.

“I would see blood, to honor Crixus,” she says, choking on muted sobs, “While I still haunt a world where he is not present.”

“I, too, for Agron,” Nasir’s own tears land on her skin, hot and wet and so very much like blood, “But that is not the only honor I desire.”

Naevia’s fingers dig into his rough cloak just as his arm tightens around her, “What else do you seek?”

Nasir gives a sob of his own, “I must fulfill his last wish for me.”

“Speak it, and I will see it done,” Naevia promises with a fire she has not felt since waking up in a Roman tent.

His voice is heavy with regret, “…Agron would have me live.”

“Then you are the stronger of us,” she whispers.

“I would have strength for us both.”

Naevia sits in Nasir’s arms, and her mind drifts to the woman and her babe. Of the rasped, quiet confessions Crixus would make in her ear when they lay together. _A child,_ he would say, hand sprawled over her naked stomach, fingers traveling over naked hips, _Once we have found your peace._ His brown, warm eyes would look into her own, seeking an answer to the question he was too afraid to ask. And she would know in those moments of vulnerability that he trusted only her with what he secretly wanted from the world.

 _A child,_ she would promise against his lips, _born in freedom._

Naevia wraps her fingers tighter into his cloak. Nasir gives a small, mournful sigh. It’s one of resignation—she has heard it before, several times throughout the course of this war.

She closes her eyes, “You are the last true friend I have left in this world.”

She feels his smile against her forehead, “And I will remain so.”

The fires dim to embers, then ashes. The slaves who found themselves warriors remain outside, drifting off under the stars. And for the first time since awakening in a world without Crixus in it, Naevia truly sleeps.

\--

Two days later, there are cries from further down the camp. Naevia listens to them, but once she decides they are not the screams of those being attacked, she turns her attention back inwards. The time has passed slowly, staying in the tent she has been afforded by Spartacus. But it’s hers, and it’s quiet, and where else do ghosts go but the empty and desolate places?

An hour later, Spartacus finds her.

And in her hand, he places a sword.

Naevia’s throat feels tighter, as she fits her fingers into the wide grooves of its white hilt, as she twists her wrists with its weight. She’s seen the blade before: tucked in the leathers of his belt, gripped in his massive hands, swung with his arms across the chests of Roman fucks.

It’s the sword Crixus took. Returned to her with the child of the man who ordered his death. For the first time, Naevia thinks the gods smile on her. Just a little, just enough.

“I’ll have his fucking life,” she whispers, a quiet oath meant only for herself. But Spartacus responds.

And forgives.

She looks into the eyes of the man that she now understands far better than she ever could have before. Like her, he has lost his heart. And while Naevia knows that Spartacus is more purpose than man, it is another thing to realize that she now shares a kinship to him deeper than that of shared slavery.

Like Spartacus, Naevia is no longer just fighting for herself.

She lifts the blade, the sunlight shining on it like a promise, cleaning the slate between them and reigniting a forgotten spark within her.

Her eyes follow its edge, “Let us have your games. Each drop of Roman blood spilled in honor of those who have been taken from us.”

Sura. Mira. Crixus. Agron.

The Romans will learn the penalty for cleaving hearts in two. And then they will kill them all.

\--

In the cavern, she dresses for battle silently with the others. Bracers and arm coverings laced with a methodical and singular purpose. To her side, Nasir readies his own armor, meeting her gaze in the firelight and giving her the barest of nods.

She’s ready, but for one thing.

Naevia’s fingers withdraw Crixus’s necklace from her belts, and she stares at the twin crow skulls with shaking breath.

“That is the necklace of champions,” comes a low voice to her right, from the last person she’d expect.

Naevia turns and meets the steady stare of Gannicus. She slowly looks back at the necklace, the silver warm against her skin, “A gift from you?”

He nods, “Though earned more than given.”

“He valued it highly.”

Gannicus hesitates just for a moment before clasping his hand on her shoulder. Its weight is heavy, and despite the strange comradery they’ve found themselves in the last few days, she tenses. He clears his throat, “You honor him by wearing it.”

Naevia closes her eyes.

Gannicus’s fingers remain on her shoulder for a few more moments, reluctantly offering a wordless comfort that she reluctantly accepts. They are among a handful who remain from the House of Batiatus, and if Naevia has learned anything from Spartacus it is that past transgressions can be overcome in the face of common enemy and purpose.

And of grief.

Her lips twitch, her thumb runs over a crow’s eye, “…Gratitude, Gannicus.”

He drops his hand from her.

“Come,” Gannicus says with a wide smile, “And let’s soak the fucking sands with Roman blood!”

Naevia nods, and wraps the leather cord of Crixus’s necklace around her knuckles.

\--

The screams of the crowd surround her as she walks out into their makeshift coliseum, walking in line with Nasir as they take to the sands.

She remembers the first time she was brought to the games. The screaming, raving desperation of the Romans as they cheered when a man was taken to his knees and cut down. She remembers how she used to turn away, until _domina_ forbade her from doing so.

She remembers the first match where he sought her gaze from the sands. He had just decapitated a man in one, smooth stroke, the blood staining the sand of the arena. His sword was still dripping with his opponent’s life, when he had looked up onto the pavus.

And smiled, just at her. For a moment.

Then he had thrown his head back in exalted laughter and picked up the man’s head by its hair, spinning before he tossed it into the crowd like a discus.

She had thought the whole thing horrible. The games cruel, and him barbaric. Unkind. Unfeeling.

Naevia watches the crowd while she walks as Crixus once had, as a fighter. As a champion. Her fingers clutch the hilt of his sword as tightly as she had once held his hand, and Naevia thinks on how the bodyslave of the _domina_ had been so very _wrong_ about so many things.

\--

The games begin.

\--

She watches as Nasir fights his opponent with spear and agility. Like her, he has never stood upon the sands. Like her, there are shades of his lover’s training in every step.

Though Nasir is not Agron, he carries him well. Naevia can only hope to carry Crixus’s memory just as honorably.

Her eyes drift to the line of chained Romans. Only one remains, and she recognizes him. The boy whelp from Crassus’ tent, his nose bloodied and swollen. His eyes are like a rabbit’s, darting from fighter to crowd to fighter. At one point, they meet her own.

Naevia smiles. Her fingers drum against the hilt, crow-beads rattling on the blade.

_Soon, my love. We will have vengeance._

\--

They bring the last Roman fuck out from his chains. And Naevia steps into the arena.

\--

She knows she does not fight like Crixus had in the arena. She does not surrender herself to the fight, there is no moment where there is only her and glory and death. Instead, she is conscious. She notices when the veins of the boy’s neck stick out in anger and humiliation. She knows that she swings too heavily or too wide.

But there’s purpose to it. To waiting. To stretching out these short moments on the sand. The boy has had some training, and for that she’s thankful. She can’t let her fight for Crixus be too short. Instead, now she feels confident that it is something she can savor.

The boy snarls, after she has swung her elbow into his face and increased the distance between them. His blade is outstretched, pointed before him.

“I recognize you,” he boasts over the jubilant cheers of the crowd (she had earned first blood, after all).

Naevia says nothing. Just lets herself be _present,_ as Crixus had taught her. But she feels a small little crack in her chest.

“You’re that fucking _Gaul’s_ woman-“ he teeth are bloodied from the lip she split, and he shifts his weight as though to charge her, “-the crows had their fill of him, if they didn’t shove his head on a pike first-!”

Naevia screams.  
And the fight is short work after that.

(onlookers would later whisper that her final kick to Tiberius’s chest matched that of Crixus, in both technique and force)

\--

She has him on his back.

Naevia fists her hand into his dark hair, lifting him up to his knees in order to expose his neck. The crowd screams (KILL THE ROMAN SHIT, FUCK THE ROMANS, KILL HIM _KILL HIM_ ) and she stares down at his face. His weak, pitiful eyes and his flaring rabbit’s nose. The almighty son of Crassus, before her like a beaten dog.

Vengeance, in her grasp.

Her grip is strong even though there is the slightest tremor to her hands as she holds the edge of Crixus’s sword against the boy’s neck. The boy presses his lips together, wincing in anticipation of the pain to come. It angers her. Crixus would not wince in his place. He would not cower. The gods had a twisted world, where they would let this one live longer than the other.

“I would see blade returned to you now,” she hisses, every part of her body coiled like a spring. She feels the balancing of scales in the weight of her sword, the grief held together in the shape of a woman for this singular purpose.

Naevia cries, brings back the sword and-

“ _NAEVIA!_ ”

-is robbed of one more thing.

\--

She grabs his necklace from the sands, the leather biting into her palm the only thing she allows herself to feel as she leaves the life that is owed to her on the ground.

As she ascends the stairs of the arena, she keeps her head down and listens to the boos of the crowd as they demand Tiberius’s head.

\--

It is Nasir who finds her in her tent, lying on her side with Crixus’s necklace held tightly to her breast. She does not try to hide the evidence of her tears from him.

Without invitation, he sits beside her head, a hand resting on her brow, “You made a difficult choice.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, his fingers threading through her hair like a mother would do to a child. She closes her eyes, and clenches her fists tighter to her.

“Would it have been his choice, were our fates reversed?”

Nasir looks down at her, and it is to his credit that he considers her question carefully in order to give an honest response. “…No. Crixus would have had the life of your killer. No matter the cost.”

New, hot tears roll down her cheeks. She does not feel surprise at this answer, but it aches just the same.

“We are not Crixus, or Agron, Naevia.” Nasir whispers, “They are our hearts, but we are not them.”

She opens her eyes and looks up at him, “And did I honor him, Nasir? With this choice he would not have made?”

Once again, he is contemplative with his answer. “You honored five hundred, Naevia. And Tiberius’s life is still yours to take another day. As are the rest of the lives I owe to Agron.”

She breathes. The promise, the oath, taking root in her.

Nasir stands, offering her his hand, “Come. And let us see the Roman to the gates.”

Naevia brings Crixus’s necklace to her lips, before she picks herself up once more.

 

**ii.**

Two days later, they come.

Husbands, brothers, sons. Wives, sisters, daughters. Fathers. Mothers. Naevia stands in the thick of it, urged by Nasir to leave her tent to see the five hundred lives she bought with forsaking vengeance.

As their cries, mournful and joyous all rolled into one, hang above the air she feels something harden within her. Though not in a bad way, the usual way. It’s more like grounding, of finding soil under her feet for the first time in ages.

“Though that those we held to heart stood among them,” Nasir says, and she only gives the barest of nods. Unable to give further support nor to voice wishes long since gone.

In the crowd, a man clings to his wife, pressing her bloodied hair to his chest and crying in relief as he sinks to his knees.

Naevia holds the necklace between her hands, thumb ghosting over its braids again and again.

“Nasir,” Castus, the pirate, breaks their quiet vigil and directs their attention towards the stream of incoming rescued prisoners.

There, in the middle, is Spartacus. And over his shoulders is the arm of a man.

Nasir is gone before she can turn to him, his short frame parting the crowds as he makes his way towards them. Naevia grips the necklace tighter, nails digging into her flesh. And she watches, from afar, as Nasir finds Agron once more.

Agron still stands. Her friends, reunited in this life. To embrace as she had once held Crixus.

She looks down to her hands.

Agron’s life, bought with Crixus’s honor.

For the first time since striking the Roman boy with her hilt instead of her blade, Naevia does not question her choice.

\--

“Naevia!”

Gannicus’s voice is distant, and she lifts her head. Her eyes scan the sea of faces.

And stop.

For Gannicus walks further down from Spartacus, and to his side he holds a man.


End file.
